Traveling Down the Right Path
by Neopuff
Summary: Rocketshipping Jessie/James Musashi/Kojiro post-Crossing Paths. Jessie enters a contest only to find that her old crush Astin is also a competitor. Can she deal with seeing him again after all these years? How can James and Meowth help her?


Oh hi guys. xD I'm writing more Jessie/James fics 3 Please forgive me ;A; I can't stooppp. Especially since I read 'The Diary of Two Hearts' by Thorned Rose. IF you can handle mature fics (like, not just in the lemon-y sense) then you should read it. It's so...fantastic.

This is 'cause of an AMV I can't stop watching on youtube...it's about Astin, Jessie, and James. If you haven't seen the episode with Astin and Austin, it's called 'Crossing Paths'. It's a good episode. BUT IT MADE ME REALLY SAD. And it made me think about Jessie and James' relationship a lot since I'm such a loser. Like, deep thinking. And I'm not gonna describe all that here because that's what livejournal's for, right? [/doesn't use livejournal]

http: //www .youtube .com/ watch? v=ucy2zMBUwrQ - And this is the AMV. Please watch it ;w; [remove spaces]

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Traveling Down the Right Path

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"Good luck, Jessie-er, Jessilina!"

Jessie smiled and waved at James and Meowth, who were standing on the other side of the closing doors. She was dressed up in her normal coordinator outfit: an orange and yellow dress with pigtails and some nice big glasses. She grabbed her pokeball containing Seviper and smiled. "We'll definitely win this, Seviper! We're a fantastic duo!"

She flew down the hallway and spun enthusiastically once or twice. A quick step through a self-opening door revealed the rest of the contestants; all of them looked like losers to Jessie, though. Obviously not everyone was there, so she looked up at the screen to see the faces of all her competition. She pointed to each one and judged them in her head. '_Blah, ugly, oh! He's cute!, boring, completely unfabulous, I don't even want to go there, and me! Who is, of course, the most fabulous face there-' _Her thoughts came to a halt at the view of a familiar face immediately next to hers. Jessie quickly looked in every direction in an attempt to find the man whose picture was on the screen, but she didn't see him. In an act of paranoia, she ran back from where she came, only to have the doors open just before she came into reach.

She bumped awkwardly into the man standing at the door, and he quickly wrapped his hands around each of her arms to keep her steady.

"Oh, sorry! Are you alright?"

Jessie looked up fearfully to see the face of the man she'd admired for so long when she was younger. She blushed at the sight of how much he'd grown, and she knew this man was her original crush rather than his doppelganger since he was a competing coordinator. She mumbled a sullen reply and pushed him out of the way, running back down the hall.

He rubbed the back of his head in confusion. "Man...she looked just like-er, nah...that couldn't have been...Jessie...could it?"

----

James and Meowth sat in the trio's cabin, the TV shouting announcements of how the contest would start within the next fifteen minutes.

"It's too bad we couldn't get some seats, huh Jim?" Meowth sighed over the missed opportunity to see one of the three excel at something besides blasting off.

James chuckled. "I'm sure Jessie won't mind as long as we're watching her on the tele-" James' words were quickly cut off by the sound of the front door opening roughly and slamming closed. James and Meowth rushed towards the source of the noise to witness Jessie throwing her glasses on the ground and taking down her hair.

"Hey Jess, what's wro-"

"Nothing! I'm just not doing this competition anymore!" she screeched at Meowth. James and Meowth stared at each other with confused faces.

"But Jessie, why not?" James stood in front of her with Meowth, and she glared at them.

"I-It's nothing! Just...I'll find a different competition to enter! This one's stupid anyway!" She stormed off to the bathroom and ignored James and Meowth's pleading faces. They flinched as she threw Jessilina's dress out of the bathroom and it landed messily on to the floor.

"...Meowth..." James started to talk, but Meowth cut him off.

"Let's go find out what's wrong." Meowth pointed to the dress and to James, implying that the blue-haired man would have to dress like his partner for a second time.

James sighed. "Alright, but I can't compete for her again! We'll find out what's wrong, fix it, and she'll win by herself!"

Meowth smiled and James put on the costume and wig. "C'mon, _Jessilina_, we've gotta hurry if we wanna help Jess!"

----

James, with Meowth walking on all fours behind him, stepped cautiously into the waiting room where all the competitors were chatting. He didn't see anything immediately frightening; not even one of those annoying twerps were there (not that he really thought any twerp could cause Jessie to express such anguish). He looked down at Meowth and asked if the cat noticed anyone or anything, and Meowth replied with a shake of his head.

As they started to walk around more, James was approached by a man about his height, with brown hair and gray eyes hidden behind thin-rimmed glasses. The man stared at James' face (creating an awkward silence between the two, James hoped this man didn't notice he was a completely different person) and he held out a hand. "Um, I'm sorry about earlier. You seemed kind of upset and I'm really hoping it wasn't my fault or anything..."

James stared at the man's hand until Meowth shoved him in the ankle, and the usually blue-haired man quickly shook hands and let go. "Uh, no! I'm sorry about that, I had left something important back at my cabin and I had to go get it in a hurry!" His falsetto voice didn't match anything close to Jessie's, so he hoped that this man hadn't heard Jessie speak.

The brown-haired man got down on one knee and started to pet Meowth, who complied with an out-of-character "purr...", which usually would've set James on a laughing spree. James, however, was staring at the man's face, trying to think of where he'd seen it before.

"I guess you went back for your Meowth, huh?" He smiled and sighed. After another second, he gasped and stood back up, rubbing the back of his head. "I'm sorry, I never even introduced myself. My name's Astin."

_I know I've seen this guy before..._ James ignored his own thoughts and smiled. "Uh-! I'm, er, Jessilina!" James took notice when Astin visibly flinched, and his smile quickly faded. "Is something wrong..." His question was cut off by an unfamiliar voice speak a familiar name, and James couldn't stop himself from listening.

A trainer behind him was talking to herself and staring at her pokeballs. "I really should use my dustox for a contest sometime..."

The word 'dustox' turned on the light bulb in James' brain, and he finally recognized the face in front of him. Jessie's dustox left for this man's dustox! That's why she'd been so upset: Astin obviously brought back bad memories! James looked down at Meowth who was most likely coming to the same conclusion, and he quickly grabbed the pokemon and ran out of the room to confront Jessie about her feelings.

Astin's glasses fell off due to the wind from "Jessilina's" quick flight out the door. He stared at where he'd last seen the girl, and scratched his head. "...she looked a lot different than before...or maybe I'm just going crazy..."

----

Jessie held her head in her hands at the realization of where her friends most likely went and what they were probably doing. She shuddered at the thought of her old crush noticing that James wasn't Jessilina, and getting her reputation as a coordinator shot. As much as she wanted to be angry at the two for trying to confront her problem without her permission, she couldn't help but smile at how touching the gesture was. And even through all that, she didn't actually _know_ if James dressed up like her and took Meowth to meet Astin. They could've just picked up the dress and taken one of the wigs and gone for a walk instead.

Yeah, right.

Her thoughts were cut short when the door opened loudly and she heard frantic footsteps running around and looking for her. She heard the steps run past the bathroom she was in multiple times, and held her breath when they stopped in front of the door.

"Jessie? Are you in there?"

She saw the doorknob spin slightly and stop when the door's lock got in the way. James immediately knew that Jessie was in there and he knocked on the door. "Jessie! I know you're in there, so please answer me!"

She heard Meowth scuffle over next to James and she flinched when the lock was picked, probably by the use of Meowth's claws. _He's only useful when I don't want him to be._ She suppressed a laugh at the next sight: James stepped in slowly with a hand over his eyes, just in case she was _actually_ using the bathroom or taking a bath or something. Jessie stood up, walked over to him, and pulled his hand off his eyes, and he opened one hesitantly before opening the other. Meowth waltzed in and stood underneath them as Jessie put both of her hands around the one she'd pulled from James, and she placed that hand against her face while looking away from both of them, into the unfortunate mirror that watched the sad scene unfolding.

"Jess, this is because of dat Astin guy, right?" Meowth knew the contest was going to start any minute, and didn't want to waste time letting Jessie get lost in her thoughts. When her only reply was a shudder at the other man's name, James kept talking.

"Jessie, you shouldn't let that bother you!" James was absolutely sure of why she was acting like this, although he couldn't understand why she was acting _this_ upset; she'd never seemed this sad about it before. When he noticed her looking at him oddly, he did a double-take on the situation and decided to elaborate. "This is because...of your dustox, right? Astin's from when you had to let it go?"

She smiled sadly and cleverly nodded, hoping that James and Meowth would let the problem go if she said agreed to something. She felt completely relieved that they didn't actually know, it was too embarrassing for her to stand it. Jessie just wanted to shove the two away so she could smack herself for acting so weak and pathetic about a stupid _man._

Meowth snarled. "...don't lie. Jess, who is dat guy if it's not him?" He noticed from her surprised expression that he was right, she had lied when she said James' idea was right. Originally the pokemon had thought the same thing, but when Jessie nodded as quickly as she did, it was obvious she was lying.

"Jessie, say something." James tightened the grip he had on the side of her face, startling her so she'd look up at him. "We're your best friends, just tell us what's wrong."

As soon as her mouth finally opened to say something, a struggling sob came out instead and she fell to the floor with her head in her hands. She felt completely weak and stupid; she wasn't quite crying but she felt on the verge of. James sat down with her and she felt his hands on her shoulders and Meowth's paws on her leg.

The quiet didn't last for long when Jessie calmed down quickly and whispered, "...sorry."

Not only was the word practically foreign to her lips, Meowth and James lifted their heads in surprise when that was the first thing she said. "What?" James regretted saying.

"...I'm sorry, James, Meowth..." she sighed and hugged her knees to her chest. "I just...I've never told anyone about this before..." She felt cold when James let go to give her more space, and even colder when Meowth took his paws off her leg. "...yes, it's because of Astin. But he's not the guy you're thinking of, that was a different person."

James nodded in understanding and Meowth couldn't help but think that James wasn't going to be happy at the end of her explanation.

"Astin was...he was..." Jessie hid her eyes by resting her forehead on her knees. "He was...perfect."

James was slightly taken aback. That was one of the few words he did _not_ expect to hear. He had just assumed this man was a bad person and had done something horrible to Jessie in the past...or something like that.

"He was one of the only people to treat me like a human being," Jessie explained. "And when he left...URGH! He asked me to go with him, and why didn't I?! For a stupid audition! And in the end I was the only one who didn't...who didn't make the cut!" She pulled on her hair exasperatedly until James and Meowth both grabbed one wrist and held them down.

"Jessie...if it hurts you this much to tell us, you don't have to." James could tell what Jessie was saying, and it hurt him. He didn't completely understand his feelings towards Jessie, but he knew anyone who caused her this much pain was _not_ a friend. James sighed, realizing that Astin hadn't actually hurt Jessie. It seemed like she had hurt herself.

"...I lost my only chance at finding true love..." she sobbed and slammed her head against her knees again.

James sucked in a breath and interrupted Meowth when the cat looked like he was about to speak. "Jessie! You didn't lose your only chance!"

Meowth stared up at James, eyes wide and mouth gaping open. _Is he gonna say what I tink he's gonna say_?

Jessie lifted up her eyes to look at James cautiously, wondering what he was going to say. She couldn't help but feel worried.

"...I'm sure Astin didn't forget about you, Jessie," James spoke calmly. "Just...tell him how you feel! If that's what you want, then you should do it!"

Jessie stared up at her partner and the tears finally started to flow. James was saying all of this for her! He was sacrificing their team for her! He was the best friend she ever had...but she couldn't accept an offer like that. "J-James...I can't..."

"What? Jessie, you deserve to be happy! And if you'd be happier with him...then go be with him!" James didn't realize he'd practically began shouting while tears pricked the corners of his eyes, and Meowth had become eerily silent.

"...I'm not ready to face him!" she finally shouted back. Jessie cried openly at her own confession, wanting to slap herself for acting so pathetically.

James felt more than angry. "Of course you're ready!" He noticed her silence and took that as a sign she was listening. "You've won multiple ribbons! You're a skilled trainer! You're a beautiful, strong, powerful woman and you could never be more ready for anything!"

Meowth looked up at the two in front of him, and backed up a bit. He felt left out and he didn't want Jessie to leave the team, but James apparently felt very strong about the subject at hand and Meowth didn't want to get in the middle of it at a bad moment.

Jessie quickly wrapped her arms around James and sobbed into his chest. "James..."

"Jessie..." He replied by bringing his arms to rest on her back, and squeezed her tight.

"You...you and Meowth are the best things that ever happened to me."

James smiled and stood up, taking Jessie with him. "Come on, Jess, you need to hurry before the competition starts."

* * *

And she did fantastically. Flying through the ranks, Jessilina landed in the final round of the competition with her faithful seviper by her side. And, in a coincidental stroke of luck, she didn't have to face off against Astin.

That is, not until the last battle.

Jessie inhaled and exhaled deeply when she saw his face next to hers, and saw him staring at her picture intently. Did he...recognize her?

"And...begin!"

Jessie shook her head to get the image of the man only a few feet in front of her out of her head. The pokeball in her hand had a heart sticker on it, and she threw it gracefully. Yanmega came out of the pokeball surrounded by lovely hearts and sparkles, shouting out its name in an effort to rouse it's opponent.

Astin grabbed his pokeball and threw it, shiny stars blinking in the smokey air.

"Go, Gallade!"

Jessie stared at the pokemon in front of her: she'd seen its kind only once or twice before. "_Gallade are pretty rare..._" Her Rocket initiative took over for half a second, the urge to steal the man's pokemon pressing against her brain. She ignored it immediately.

"Yanmega! Start with a quick attack!"

Jessie's yanmega sped towards the gallade at a breakneck speed, and almost got to the gallade until...

"Dodge it and use Leaf Blade!"

The gallade jumped up into the air quickly, showing off its power and superiority to the bug-type in front of it. Its' arms started to glow before it whipped out some sharp leaves that sliced into yanmega's abdomen.

"Yanmega!" Jessie squealed, concerned for the safety of her pokemon and her chances of winning the battle. She flinched when she looked up at the score board, seeing that hers had gone down slightly from the attack. "Yanmega! Get up and do this! Use Double Team and confuse that stupid gallade!"

Astin looked offended when she said "stupid", and pointed outwards. "Don't get confused, Gallade! There's only one of it!"

Unfortunately for him, Gallade got confused extremely easily. It looked left and right and all around, seeing yanmegas everywhere. Astin's points went down slightly.

"Go, Yanmega! Use Ancient Power!" Jessie yelled. At once, the images of yanmegas faded into the real one, revealing its' attack that was already charged and ready to fire. It threw the ball of energy towards its' opponent, hitting the gallade dead-center.

"Gallade!" the creature cried. It flew backwards and rolled on the ground for a few moments before getting up wearily.

"Gallade! Keep going!" Astin had a relieved look on his face to see the attack didn't do too much damage to his pokemon. It damaged his score plenty, however. "Alright, hit 'em with Leaf Blade again!" The leaves shot through the air towards Yanmega.

Jessie pointed outwards dramatically. "Yanmega! Use Silver Wind!" Yanmega's wings sent shining cresants towards the leaves, ripping them apart and sending small torn pieces all around its' body. Yanmega flew around in a circle for dramatic effect while the leaves danced around it.

Astin's points went down again. "Gallade, use-"

"Use Sonic Boom!" Jessie interrupted. Yanmega flapped its' wings again, sending a low but powerful attack towards the grass-type in front of it.

Astin smirked. "Alright, Gallade, use Teleport!" The gallade disappeared from its' place immediately before the attack hit. Jessie's yanmega looked confused and turned its' head side to side for a few seconds, before Astin screamed out, "Use NightSlash!"

Jessie's face was full of shock as her yanmega screamed its' name and fell forward into the battlefield below. "Come on, Yanmega!" she screeched. In a spark of the moment, she turned to see how her and Astin's points were doing. But the first thing her eyes fell upon on the scoreboard was the timer, that was less than two seconds from zero.

She froze when the buzzer went off, and the announcer said time was up. Not looking at Astin for a second, she stared at the scoreboard again. Their scores looked identical.

Marian, the contest announcer, put on a huge smile. "Wow! It's a tie!" She spun around to face the audience. "And do you know what _that_ means?"

Astin had a victorious smirk on his face, showing his confidence. Jessie, on the other hand, was in deep contemplation. _This could be my perfect chance..._ She knew she wanted to win desperately, but fame and love were on two different scales of importance. She wanted Astin to know she still remembered him...and that she still cared about him. She sighed and brought out her pokeball, recalling Yanmega.

"That means I'm done."

Everyone in the audience turned to look at Jessilina. She was somewhat well-known in the region for her vain personality, determination, and unique performances. But this was so unique no one could really fathom the idea. She was _forfeiting?_

Astin finally spoke. "Done? Why?"

Jessilina looked over at him seriously for the first time, locking their eyes together. She smiled sadly and looked down at Yanmega's pokeball. "...Because you deserve to win this more than I do. I mean, you've been a coordinator for how many years now? At least ten..."

He stared at the woman across from him awkwardly. _How does she know that?_ "You..." He started walking her way slowly.

Marian, and the rest of the audience, were silent as Jessilina pulled off her giant glasses. She looked over at Astin again, and smiled. "Hi...Astin."

His face was full of shock, confusion, and happiness. "Jessie! It _is_ you!" He ran over to her and, to Jessie's completely surprise, hugged her tight. "I never thought I'd see you again..."

She waited a moment before hugging back, not sure how she felt at that moment. Until she'd actually felt his arms around her, she'd wanted nothing more than to be with him. But those words..._I never thought I'd see you again..._ She imagined the worst. If she went with Astin after this, would she ever see James and Meowth again? They were her absolutely best friends...but what was more important? Friendship or romance?

Marian looked interested. "It seems our two coordinators have a history together people! Maybe even a budding romance?" She giggled into the microphone and listened as the crowd let out some "aww"s. Well, almost all of the crowd.

James and Meowth, after seeing how distraught their partner was, decided to forget seats and just stand through the competition. They were proud of her determination throughout the entire competition, and were both extremely satisfied with her performance until this last round. James tried his hardest to keep a straight face when Astin ran up and hugged _his_ Jessie. Unfortunately for him, Meowth noticed.

"Hey Jim, if youse is jealous, you better do somethin' about it soon," Meowth spoke with a straight face. Being a victim of love's undeniable pains, Meowth was almost as serious on the subject as Jessie was. James knew the least about love between the three of them, since his childhood romance included a temporary crush on Jessibelle that led to her psychotic obsession with him. He didn't honestly know if he was jealous of this Astin guy or not, but he knew he didn't like him.

"Meowth, it's not-"

"Don't even try," Meowth said sternly. He glared at James with such force that the bluenette shut his mouth immediately. "You say you want Jess to be happy, and I'm all with ya there, but what about you? And what about the team?" Meowth looked down at his paws. "Without Jessie around, we'll be nothing. She wants love, real love, and I know you've got it for her. So why don't you _say it_?"

James was stunned. Meowth was right. Absolutely right. There was no denying it any further, not when that cat's linguistics went underway. "...I don't know." He glared down at Astin and Jessie, currently chatting awkwardly with their hands on each others' shoulders. James felt something click in his head and he started down the steps.

Jessie and Astin had stared at each other for almost a full minute before either spoke. Astin smiled at her sadly, but not with any amount of disappointment. "...I guess that acting job didn't work out?"

Jessie chuckled a bit before separating herself from the boy in front of her. "I guess not," she said. Jessie rubbed her arm awkwardly. "I guess you're still on your way to becoming top coordinator?"

He smirked. "I'm almost there." He reached out and hugged her again, to which she didn't comply or resist. She just stood there in his arms, feeling warm and uncomfortable at the same time. "Jessie, it's been so long...I missed you..." He brought his hand up to her cheek and brushed a stray hair out of the way. "You really grew your hair out again, huh?"

She smiled. "And you look the same as always..." She was tempted to ask how his social life had gone after he'd left so many years ago, but was cut off by a voice behind her.

"Stop! J-Jessie!" James stood only a few feet behind the couple, looking more nervous than a helpless magikarp surrounded by hungry persians.

Jessie swiftly turned around with a more-than-shocked look on her face. "James?" She was confused. First he told her to go and do this, now he was telling her to stop? She wanted to yell at him, but couldn't find the voice in front of Astin.

Marian smirked even more. "Looks like we've got some competition, everybody! This is getting exciting!"

Astin smiled. "Is that your boyfriend, Jessie? You always were popular with the guys in the orphanage..." He chuckled as Jessie turned slightly pink.

"No, he's not-"

"But he wants to be!" James spit out. He wanted to regret saying it as soon as it came out of his mouth, but he couldn't help what was true. He _did_ love her and he _didn't_ want her to leave.

Jessie stared wide-eyed at her partner. He'd always been horrible when it came to timing, but this just took the cake. She was speechless.

James walked over and grabbed one of her hands. "Look, Jess, I know I should've said this before...but I didn't think it was true. And I know you'd rather be with _this guy_ than me," James ignored Astin raising his eyebrow at the emphasis, "but I...I love you so much and I want you to stay with me and Meowth!"

Jessie had no idea what to say. This was probably one of the most unexpected things James had ever done. "You..."

Astin sighed behind her, and she turned around to face him. "You want to be with me...?"

She blushed and mumbled something.

"Jessie..." he frowned. "Jessie, back when we were together, I wanted nothing more than to be with you forever. But when we separated...I felt obligated to move on. Now I'm married..."

Jessie was shocked. Not at the fact that he was married, but at the fact that she didn't care as much as she thought she would. Her mind was focused on James. He _loved_ her. And she knew how he meant that, not a platonic sort of love. He was _in _love with her.

She chuckled, to the surprise of both James and Astin. "So...Astin is married and James is in love with me..." She looked over at Astin. "Astin...it's been great seeing you again. Go ahead and take the ribbon...you deserve it."

Astin smiled and nodded at her, before turning to explain the situation to the judges.

Jessie and James blocked out everyone else in the room; at that moment there was only each other.

"Jessie..."

"I've never met anyone in my life with worse timing than yours," she said nonchalantly.

James smirked. "It's a talent."

Jessie ran over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. "James, I-I can't understand you at all...and that just makes me love you more..." She smiled into his shoulder, sending shivers down his spine.

James happily wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her even closer. He waited for her to lift her head up again before speaking. "Jessie...I..." He couldn't find the words, and felt something physical could wrap up the moment better. He moved his face closer to hers until their lips locked together. They stayed like that for what seemed like hours until a loud throat-clearing noise was heard through the speakers.

They separated with a "pop!" sound, only to add to the embarrassment. Marian was blushing and happily staring at the new couple, but nonetheless couldn't keep the audience staring at the two making out when the end of the contest needed to happen.

Without saying a word to anyone, Jessie turned around and silently exited the arena. James grabbed her fallen glasses and, not without signalling to Meowth first, followed right behind Jessie.

Marian stared at their retreating backs, giggling on the inside. "Well, everybody! This was a whole new kind of contest, huh?" The crowed cheered in reply. "But enough with the romance...looks like we have our winner by default!"

* * *

heehee c: I had trouble getting towards the end since I'm not used to writing fighting scenes. A Pokemon Battle is good practice, I guess xD Hope you liked!


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